I downloaded an old PC game onto my laptop and had to use DOS Box to run it, because Windows 11 wouldn’t allow a 16-bit application to run.
Why is it that a much more powerful laptop can’t deal with software my PC had no problems with 20 years ago? Same thing with backwards-compatible video games.
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When Intel CPUs are running in long mode (64 bit mode) they can execute 32 bit protected mode instructions and 16 bit protected mode instructions by placing the processor in a compatibility mode but they cannot execute 16 bit real mode instructions without also making use of a virtual machine monitor or emulation layer.
When 16 bit protected mode was introduced with the 80286 it came with an enormous performance penalty that was only marginally improved with the introduction of 32 bit protected mode on the 80386. Ergo, most software intended to run on MSDOS continued to run in real mode even if it was run in a protected mode environment such as Windows 3.1.
Microsoft has chosen to not provide a compatibility environment for 16 bit applications (real or protected) on 64 bit versions of Winsows, either through a virtual machine or through emulation. This is likely motivated by the fact that there are multiple free offerings available which suit this purpose quite well.
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